News and views from SA Canada It’s time for the NDP to Put capitalism on trial C is overwhelming. Across Canada,
2009Barry Weisleder 2009-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 10 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 10
Capitalism isn’t working. The proof 1.5 million are unemployed, not counting discouraged workers and the under-employed. The numbers are ex pected to rise well into 2010. The In ternational Labour Organization warns that the number of jobless worldwide could reach 239 million this year, and that young people will be the hardest hit. The system’s spin doctors are try ing to fool the public by talking about ‘recovery’. But when pressed, the big shots admit it is a ‘jobless recovery’.
The failure of Canadian and global capitalism is evident in advancing cli mate change, impending environmen tal disaster, and the spread of drought and famine. It is apparent in the bru tal imperial wars of occupation, in the growing gap between rich and poor, and in the assault on demo cratic rights wherever popular resistance takes to the streets.
Clearly, years of cuts, concessions, privatization, and tax breaks for giant corporations did nothing to solve the biggest problems facing society. They simply made the rich richer at the expense of workers. They em boldened the ruling elite to demand more, stimulated corruption in the highest places, and extended the life span of a dying, wasteful and outmoded system that puts profits before people every time.
Even if ‘recovery’ from the current world economic depression occurred tomorrow, the fact remains that capitalism condemns humanity to recurring cycles of recession/depression. It sentences us all to endless crippling wars, eco-disasters, glaring inequalities and obscene oppression.
So, why continue to make excuses for the system? Why continue to tinker with the mechanisms of a death machine? Why keep Capital on life support at the expense of Labour? As former NDP MP Svend Rob inson famously said, “Capitalism is like a rabid dog that should be put down.”
The time has come to stop scratching at the surface. We need to expose the fundamental flaws, the deep-rooted contradictions of the system, and to fight for a socialist alternative.
It’s time for the NDP to put capitalism on trial.
That’s the task facing delegates at the party’s federal convention, Aug. 14-16, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We can easily demonstrate that capitalism is killing the planet and its inhabitants in a multitude of nefari ous ways, and that to survive the working class and its allies are compelled to replace the system root and branch. It’s the truth that needs to be told, with the power to conquer misinformation and fear, and to give voice to millions.
The NDP can lead the fight for a future worthy of hu manity, but not if its leaders mince words and make opportunistic concessions to the powers that be. NDP support in the 2008 election campaign peaked at 22 per cent, compared with 15 per cent now. The idea of entering a coalition government with the big business-controlled Liberal Party dealt a severe blow to the NDP’s independence as a party of the working class. Since then, the party leadership has echoed the lame lamentations of the labour brass, when what is desperately needed, in addition to fixing E.I. and sav ing pensions, is a bold campaign to turn government bail-out money into public equity—towards the na tionalization, under workers’ and community control, of auto, steel, oil and the big banks.
Make Capital pay for a massive public works effort The decision by New Democratic Party officials to feature Obama’s director of communications, Anita Dunn, at the NDP federal convention, reveals a mis conception. The Democratic Party, USA, is no friend of working people anywhere. The invitation to Dunn compromises the independence of the NDP from the corporate rulers on both sides of the Canada-U.S.
border. — B.W.
10 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2009 to convert to green energy, to repair roads, bridges, railways and ports, and to build social housing. That is the way to defend and expand employment, and to meet human needs by democratizing and planning the economy.
As the NDP Socialist Caucus has argued since its foundation in 1997, and which we re-state today with greater conviction than ever, to survive the NDP must turn sharply to the left. Increasingly, this is an argu ment for the survival and prosperity of humanity as a whole. If you agree, please join us in fighting for social ist policies.
and central government in the capitalist world, is suffering a financial crisis. Toronto’s chronic underfunding malaise was not born yesterday. Massive cuts in transfer payments to the provinces by Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in the 1980s, were deepened and accelerated by the Chretien/Martin Liberals in the 1990s with the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST). Then the provinces offloaded to their cities responsibility for infrastruc ture costs associated with airports, water, sewage, mass transportation, police, welfare, and more— but without the money or tax tools required to cope with it all.
So, cities had a huge expenditure problem. And they faced a choice: mobilize residents to fight the changes, or just comply with the neo-liberal corpo rate agenda.
How did Toronto politicians respond? They cut services, like street cleaning and snow removal, and limited public access to swimming pools, arenas, community centers, and libraries. They reduced water testing and park upgrades. City Council implemented a range of regressive, consumptionbased flat taxes on all citizens, while at the same time reducing commercial property taxes, under valuing business land assessments and providing major grants and financial assistance to business.
One of the flat taxes Miller instituted, under the provisions of the new City of Toronto Act 2006, is the Municipal Land Transfer Tax, which ranges from 0.5 per cent to 2 per cent of each sale price. Another is the Personal Vehicle Ownership Tax, a reg istration fee, on top of the already-existing provincial registration fee.
The city gave generous property tax breaks to big business. These include subsidies, tax incentives, and/ or deferrals for costly environmental clean-ups, such as for empty industrial lands (‘brown-field remedia tion’), as well as tax incremental equivalent grants (TIEGs), which involve rebates and minimal property taxes for major commercial developers. Such tax giveaways cost the city billions of dollars in lost revenue. Meanwhile small homeowners and tenants face steep ly rising taxes, rents, and fees—and public services